What is the best time of year to climb Mt. Kilimanjaro?
I don’t think it matters much, since Mt. Kilimanjaro is so close to the Equator. Days and nights are always the same length, and they don’t have summers or winters. However, they have two wet seasons (the “short rains” in October and November, and the “long rains” in March, April, and May). But if you’re going to be combining a Mt. Kilimanjaro climb with wildlife viewing in Tanzania or Kenya, like most people, you may wish to avoid the rainy seasons. The reason is that when it is dry, it is easy to find the big game animals — they’re at the waterholes. When its rainy, they could be anywhere. Also, most of the roads in the game parks (and a lot of them elsewhere) are dirt, and get muddy in the rainy seasons. That, at least, is the conventional wisdom. I was in East Africa from February until May, including visits to Ngorongoro Crater and the Serengeti in February, when it was dry, and again in April, when it was wet, and I saw about the same numbers of animals both times. And muddy roa
